The Kids' Vault
by Ji'aska
Summary: The world was about to end, but the KND couldn't disappear. Not even the end of the world would get rid of the KND. Hence, the Kids' Vault. But how will these people react when they enter the Wasteland? Summary may change later.


Prologue: The Kids' Vault

It was the year 2075 and the world was going to heck in a hand basket. The world was having an all-out war with itself, the sort of world that poisoned everyone with its bile.

Marcus McKenzie, eight year old Supreme Leader of the Kids Next Door, quickly learned that that bile didn't care about ages either.

"I just don't think I can trust a Supreme Leader who's American." An Asian operative complained. The Sector Leader and the Supreme leader were having a meeting about the worrying state of the world.

But Marcus was American, and there were several people sitting around this table that didn't trust him.

"I have to agree with Numbuh 28," The French sector leader voiced her opinion, "You have to admit, Ninety Nine, that it doesn't look great."

Marcus, or Numbuh 99, let out a large sigh, "Okay guys, just because my country is currently going to war with China over some energy issues doesn't mean I agree. Kids first, I couldn't care."

This had been the ways things had been going over the last year or so. The adults' war with each other had poisoned most kids' minds. Instead of trying to stop the war and help the kids' whose lives were being ripped apart, they were sitting here, arguing about Ninety-Nine's motives.

"Couldn't care?" Twenty Eight glared at his commanding officer, "You couldn't care about the horrific things your country is doing? And you expect me to be able to trust you."

Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose, just like that things unravelled. The table devolve into a shouting contest between people who supported China or supported America, or people that said that their countries were just waiting for a sneak attack to turn the war in their favour.

At the end of all this someone left the room and slammed the door yelling, "I quit!"

Shortly after every other member left in a similar manner, leaving Marcus at the table so that he could slam his head against the table in peace.

In short order most kids' that were invested in the war in anyway 'quit' as well, the system was also completely forgotten, as they all left without being decommissioned properly.

Marcus couldn't believe it, because of the adults and their energy crisis the Kids Next Door had turned on itself. He couldn't believe it.

Nobody saw events like Marcus, mostly because no one had the amount information Marcus did. He was The Supreme Leader, all operatives gave their reports to him and he read them. Even better, a lot of the current world leaders had kids who were in the KND. Marcus _knew_ what was going happen.

No one else had all the pieces of the puzzle, they just had their own jigsaw pieces and thought they were the finished image.

And try as he might Marcus couldn't get anyone to see this. Now even his parents, and they really should be listening.

After the KND fell apart Marcus left their base and walked home. When he got there the family car wasn't there, so either it was stolen or his parents were out. Sadly, Marcus didn't have a house key. He pulled out the bobby pin in his hair, and proceeded to pick the lock. Marcus thought back to when other kids used to call him _girly_ because he pinned his hair. This was why he didn't care.

He was running out of choices. The first plan had been to stop the war. That had failed. The backup plan was to make sure the kids next door survived.

That was his focus now, and he'd given it a lot of thought. He just needed to wait till his parents came home.

He played on his Pip-boy as he waited, he nicked some kid's copy of the Red Menace on his way home. Marcus let out a dark laugh, the world hadn't even ended yet and he was already throwing out his morality issues.

He was just getting to final boss as his parents walked in.

"Marcus, what we told you about picking the lock?" His father said playfully.

"Nothing, because I only started doing it a week ago." Marcus spoke with little emotion to his voice, "We need to talk. Now."

This made both of his parents ' _aww'_ at how adorable Marcus was when he was trying to be serious. Normally Marcus would be annoyed, and in truth he still was, but he something to do.

"I was the leader of an international organisation of kids that exists to protect children from adult tyranny." To be fair, his parents had tried to keep a straight face.

"That's just so cute! So what do you do, mister Leader? Do you make sure all the other kids have their milk and cookies?" His mom said with that smile on her face that just said she was only humouring him.

"That was a small part of my job, yes." Marcus could only roll his eyes, "But that's not important. Listen to me, we were trying to stop the war, but some internal conflicts ending up breaking the group apart. Now, I'm begging you, _I need a vault._ "

Instantly their faces lost a bit of colour, "Oh come on, champ! Kids shouldn't talk about stuff like that."

"Listen, I didn't ask to be born, but as it happens I enjoy living. So excuse me if I'm concerned about all you adults ruining _my_ world."

"It isn't our fault." His dad said defensively.

"It's everyone's fault." Marcus said, "But if you want to do one good thing for a world that's about to die, then please build me a vault."

His mom shook her head, "Your just a kid, you don't understand how much money it costs to build a vault. We can't just build you one because you want one. It wouldn't be fair to everyone else."

A chill ran up Marcus' back and silence hung in the room for a moment. Marcus' parents had a lot of sway over Vault-Tec. They were scientists, and unknown to them he knew what the vaults were actually for.

Vault-Tec told America that the vaults could save everyone. In truth, Vault-Tec didn't think the war was going to go that far, and even if it did they didn't think it would last very long. Because of these two factors Vault-Tec was building Vaults, but only one in ten of them actually did what they promised.

Most Vaults existed for some kind of horrible experiment that his parents had planned, simply out of a desire to learn how humans would react to horrible circumstances. Marcus thought that his parents were evil.

But because of their sick scientific mind set, it was easy to lead them where he wanted.

"Oh, I didn't want the Vault just for me. I wanted one for kids." Just like that his parents' eyes lit up in curiosity.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when we all go into the vault I assume it'll be rather boring, especially if there are no other kids there." Marcus shrugged his shoulder and let out a sigh, "So I wanted to have a vault were the kids could go. Would be better than being stuck with all those stuffy adults."

Shortly after he finished talking his parents started whispering to each other and he knew he had them.

He heard things like, "Long term psychological effects?" and, "What about when they start going up and experience sexual hormones for the first time with no one to guide them?"

Their eyes were absolutely gleeful, and Marcus could do little more then be grateful that his parents were so twisted.

So Marcus got his wish, his parents decided to move some funds around to make Marcus a perfectly functional vault, because the experiment here was more about how the inhabitants would react then how a deliberate flaw would affect people's long term mental state.

Marcus was spent most of the time leading up to the Vault's completion downloading books to his Pit-boy. Gardening, advanced robotics, gun safety and maintenance, several medical texts and biology books and the list continued.

Though there was a book that he need that was more challenging. A book that held everything KND, something of the utmost importance.

The Book of KND. Written back in the first age of KND, whenever that was, this book was a pain. Mostly because it was written long before the Pip-boy was even a thing. He had to copy the book word for word.

Marcus felt worse and worse as he went. He knew that he was breaking some KND rule somewhere, probably with the logical conclusion that at some point in this Vault's future there would probably be teens, even adults, that didn't lose their memories. He could only hope that remember why Vault was built would make them…less adult then the adults of today.

And so is happened. In the year 2077, the bombs dropped. Marcus wasn't surprised.

He had been placed in _his_ Vault. The Vault he had built. He didn't have much say over who would be in the Vault, but he manage to get some people in there, a couple of old friends from a better time.

There were five hundred girls and five hundred boys. All below 13, and sadly most of them weren't from the KND. Which meant that they didn't have an operative's nerve.

So now Marcus was playing babysitter for around 900 other kids. Wonderful.

And that's why Vault 99 exists.

* * *

oh god i'm bored. sorry about that, anyone that was unlucky enough to stumble across this. i've got a case of writer's block. so i give you...this. eh.

good night.


End file.
